Thursday, May 1, 2014

Mark Glaze Out; Question Mark In

Mark Glaze was is the Executive Director of Everytown Moms for Illegal Mayors has announced he is leaving his position with the group in June according to a report out from Thompson/Reuters.

"It is time for me to hand off the fight to somebody else," Glaze, 43, said in an interview. "The issue is unbelievably important to me. But it's a tough issue and a tough grind. And there's a point where you feel you've done all you can do."

In my opinion, Mark Glaze was an outsider and Bloomberg wants to put one of his inner circle into the position. Glaze is a principal in the Raben Group which is a DC political consulting firm. Now that Bloomberg is putting up some serious cash, he wants someone whom he can control in the position of Executive Director.

My guess for the next Executive Director would be John Feinblatt. He served in Bloomberg's NYC administration as the chief advisor for policy and strategic planning and as the criminal justice coordinator. He was Bloomberg's point man for MAIG within the Office of the Mayor. Now that Bloomberg is out of office I think he wants to continue using Feinblatt in that role. Like Glaze, he is both a lawyer and gay. However, at age 62, he is considerably older and presumably more experienced in the halls of power than the younger Glaze. I only bring up that Feinblatt is gay to point out that Glaze isn't being pushed out over his sexual orientation.

As to the stay-at-home mother of five being the next Executive Director, not a chance in hell.

I doubt it's because of the Facebook screw-up. I'm not certain that Bloomberg didn't jump the gun on the announcement before everything was ready. Either way, I think the writing was on the walls once Bloomberg started to staff up Everytown. I'd wager the decision was made before the Facebook screw-up.

I agree with John that Feinblatt is the likely replacement. He's been very involved with MAIG, and is now on full time Staff. It appears he largely called the shots even when MAIG was running. The only reason he probably wasn't heading up MAIG to begin with is because he was on staff with the City.

I also agree that there's no way Shannon Watts gets the job. She's a loose cannon. They need someone calm, cool and collected.